Another Disaster Wednesday (sigh)

As both my faithful readers know, I get Wednesdays off because it's Buddy's day off work and he looks after the kids. I like to go down to the pub before everyone gets home and not come back at least until Doc is in bed. I used to get calls the whole time from Buddy or the kids all acting outrageously, unable to cope for even one afternoon without adult supervision. It got a little better over the summer but last night was a throwback to the good old days. I didn't hear anything last night, but I spent today cleaning up the mess. Tish woke me up before she went to work at 8 and said that the boys had spent last evening with dad fighting and screaming at each other. Doc especially had been mouthing off and screaming like a 2 year old. She added that I had to send Doc to spend the afternoon in his room because he wrote a gay 'slur' about Kit on the Bupkes Board (our kitchen white board) this morning. Oh boy, my afternoon was shaping up and I wasn't even out of bed yet. Of course, I knew Doc wasn't acting alone because, since he's only 6, he doesn't even know what the words mean. So instead of a quiet day followed by football practice and a quiet supper, I had come down hard on Tio, too, and relive yesterday's gunfights. A few weeks ago I told Tio under no circumstances would I tolerate gay slurs aimed at Kit. I landed on him like a ton of bricks for homosexual name calling. I made it clear our family has a zero tolerance policy about that and if he broke it, woe be unto him. Our home, our family, is the one safe haven for each of us. For all the crap we take out there at school and work and such, we have to know we are accepted at home. Sure, as brothers they're going to call each other names and fight but some things are off limits - and this is one. As a kid who grew up with a cleft lip, I got bullied and pushed and teased all the time. But when I came home I was normal. No one ever mentioned or used that against me. I got called plenty of other things by my brothers, and my sister and I fought horribly sometimes, but my disfigurement never, ever entered the fight. "And that," I told Tio, "is how it should be and will be." Well, if Doc knew how to spell fag and write it on the board, it was clear that Tio hadn't got the message which left me in the crappy position of having to deal with it today. Not only that but my iPad reminded me that both older boys had therapy appointments after school. So with the weight of having to play the heavy on my shoulders, I picked them both up and off we went to a pair of appointments. I know that Kit provoked and Tio provoked and Kit called names and Tio called names. That's the way it always goes but do you think either of them would admit they were party to the trouble? In your dreams. To hear them tell it each of them was innocently kissing babies or saving the world from hunger when out of the blue their brother came by and created a scene, completely unprovoked. Fortunately, the saving grace was the therapists who managed to nicely create a mediation setting where we could get straight answers and a neutral way forward. If that hadn't happened, Tio might have lost his football season and Kit unable to see his friends all weekend. Doc still had to spend the afternoon in his room and he accepted the punishment without a fight. Now if we can just survive the 4 day weekend that starts tomorrow....